Anything
by brightnight98
Summary: How Snape combats the loss of Lilly. Goes over in detail emotions that Snape goes through, and explains how I have always interpreted his feelings for Lilly. Contains some reference to adult themes and talk about dead bodies, nothing horrible, I promise, but rated T to be safe. This is my first entry to fan fiction, so show me some love and tell me what you think in the reviews!


A shroud of silence had its sheets rapped around my body, my throat, my eyes. I could not see through the thick ache of grief riding through me in shivering quakes and rocks. I grasped at the stone, begging in my mind for it to devour me – make me its own. The stone of these walls had it so unjustly easy. No ability to grieve or ride emotion. No reason for it. Their path a stony trail. Parallel and exact, never changing. I yearned to become like the stone. To never feel emotion. To never of felt emotion. Life would be so _easy._ So simple. But life isn't simple.

I used to think it might be. I used to have only one thing to live for. I had met Lily Evans when I was so young. When she was so young. And even then, like in death, she was beautiful.

When she had responded to my voice, walking towards me, I couldn't believe my luck. No one had ever approached me before, they were scared to. Lily's sister, Petunia, running away so idiotically was proof of this. But Lily kept walking toward me, her amber hair waving wistfully in the gentle breeze. At the time I had likened it to the embers of a flame – but I now realize the relation is stronger to the glow of the sun on water. She continued until her face should have been just inches from mine, but her height meant she needed to crane her neck only slightly to meet my gaze.

"What did you say?" she had asked in curiosity, an interested daze in her eyes. No colour on this earth likened itself to the green of those eyes. I had lost myself in them for just a moment before answering her question.

"Your special," I had exclaimed softly, leaning in so our faces where almost touching.

She didn't lean away.

"How?" her whisper had asked. A small smile had begun to twitch at the sides of her lips. She knew exactly how.

"I've been watching you." Her eyebrows pulled together at this into a gentle slope. I had hurried to correct her confusion. I wish I had savoured that moment a little longer. Given myself chance to engross myself in the pool of lush green that where her eyes.

"Whilst you're at the park," I added firmly. "I've seen what you can do. You're magic…"

And she was. It was from that moment on that I realised just how magical Lily Evans was. I was drawn to her like a moth to a flame. Over the years of friendship we had shared, I had fallen so deeply and irrevocably in love with her. I had never voiced it, but she had known. She knew the internal sacrifice I had made when she married James. She knew the pain she had caused me when she birthed her child. Their child. The child that should be _mine_.

She understood my deep, irrational love for her. She accepted that it would never, ever die. And I accepted it too. If she ever did love me, even for a moment – it would have never been close to the indescribable bond that drew me to her. That forced me to burn internally even now. After so long. I had never voiced these feelings, but she knew. I wish I had told her. I wish I had told her first. If I had, maybe I would be in her arms at this moment, instead of grasping at the walls of Hogwarts in pain.

I continued up this stony stairwell, dragging my feet at the ebbs of the stone, rolling my heels over the loose gravel. I dug my nails into my palms until they bled, but I could hardly recognize the pain. It just deepened my internal fire. Reminding me cruelly of why I was here.

I gripped at the walls to support my body. Why didn't I just fall? Why didn't I die right here? Take out my wand and slice my own throat? Watch the blood ooze from my skin upon the stone she once walked. _We_ once walked.

At least we would be together then. At least we would be _free. _I knew that he would be there too. And she would love _him_. She would love James. But I would watch them love a million times and laugh at that pain over this, this _burning_.

Even that could not match the crying that coiled at every cell of body. Crisping my skin until it was tight to my bones, drying my blood until by body shrivelled, lifeless. Pointless. If it were not for the gentle moisture I felt in my eyes I would of thought the fire had scorched them too.

The flesh under my skin was raw against these flames. Wheezing in complaint against my forcing this flesh upwards. Higher into the night. Deeper into the darkness. That is the only place I can go from here. Deeper and deeper into this suffocating grief. The barren walls of the deep, unintelligible emptiness where laughing now. This was more than sadness, than anger, than guilt.

This was empty.

My life felt so, lifeless. So unimportant that I felt like surrendering myself to the flames. I knew it would not take their licking strokes of heat long to reach my core, my centre of being. And then they would destroy that too. Leaving behind only the darkened embers of a shell. A soulless thing. My fire was my own dementor, sipping my soul in a mocking fashion, leaving me as broken shards of glass. The numbness scared me. I did not want to forget Lily. Not the smooth ivory of her skin or the winged flutter of her lashes. None of it. No grief could ever take that image away from me. No deal could make me wish away the moments I spent with her, though almost everyone of those moments I was in pain – it did not matter. None of it did. Lily Evans would never be forgotten.

So I pushed against the darkness. I duelled with the emptiness until the image of the stone returned to me; feeling the soothing cool of these slabs of smooth rock. I steadied myself, brushing at invisible ashes upon my robes, and continued up toward Dumbledore's office. The tears spilled over and the grief returned like a stab to my heart, but even this was better than the unforgivable numbness. Accepting my loss was better than hiding from it.

Because Lily Evans _was _dead.

Just thinking these words sent burning splinters through my heart, and a new river flowed from my tear ducts, but I had to. I had to say it.

Stepping over James's body, I had wished only he had died. But as I stared into those lifeless eyes I realised with a pang of guilt that all those years of hatred where for nothing. And it had ached to know that James Potter's death was what it had taken to prove this to me. But I continued past those eyes, searching desperately for a pair that shone emerald green. A pair that shone with life, perhaps with fear. With grief, maybe, for the dead man downstairs, but with life, with beautiful, loving life.

And I found them.

Past the limp body of Lily Evans; were the petrified eyes of a crying child, staring hugely at his mother. A scar was ground into his skull, and it was bleeding. I had followed those eyes, to the body on the floor. And though, I knew all along, that the dark lord would not give mercy to an innocent woman, her body, so lifeless, still shocked me to my core.

It was her eyes. If it wasn't for her eyes, gazing wide and glassy, she could have just been sleeping, her hair fell almost neatly around her face, and her limbs rested peacefully at her side. Even her skin had a slight rosy glow to it, a blush I loved so much.

But her eyes…

They were so terrified. Tears, cold and still, dotted around her lids whilst her pupils where wide in a never ending scream. The green of her iris where darkened so deep and beautiful it could of only been in sadness. But what brought me to my knees, where the direction her eyes searched. In the last second of her life, Lily Evans had been looking at her child, protecting that small piece of her that had to live. Memorizing his face before hers fell motionless forever.

I pushed the image from my mind as I neared Dumbledore's office. "Sherbet lemon."

In the last few hours, my voice had seemed to have aged, dragging at the wrong sounds and croaking as it breathed. I had always hated my voice, but this was different. It reminded my only further as to why my life was deteriorating at the seams.

I reached the doors to Dumbledore's office, and just before I pushed them open, I realized that the burnt ochre segments of the wood were far to close to the autumn amber of Lily's hair. As I stared at the warm curves of the wood, I saw her. I saw the billows of red framing her face, reaching down the gentle slop of her neck, where her skin followed to the soft frame of her shoulder. It continued, a river of maple leaves, to the curve of her bare breast and along, finishing at her waist, where her skin continued, naked, to her toes. With her eyes closed, I heard her voice, so perfect, a chorus of tinkling bells, calling my name.

"Severus. _Severus._"

Although I knew that responding to the cries emitting from my head would result in unbelievable pain later, I felt myself advancing towards her, not caring of the future, just caring far too much for the woman in front of me. And then, far too soon to be real, my lips were at the smooth slope of her neck, kissing in gentle movements. One of my hands was placed tentatively at her waist, whilst my other twisted through the fire of her hair. All this time she had been softly moaning my name, but suddenly, her body was twisted so naturally around mine in an embrace that sent sparks through my blood. She reached her lips towards mine, kissing me. And with her eyes still closed she whispered,

"I love _you, _Severus…"

At these words, I parted her mouth almost ferociously, caressing the soft flesh of her lips with the warm tip of my tongue. She responded by pressing her body further against mine, returning my kiss against my lips, along my neck, at my chest. She lifted her head towards mine, and opened her eyes.

Gasping in horror, and I tried to step back, but I found myself returning to that forgotten part of childhood where I could not find use of my legs. Her eyes had no life in them, staring in that same frozen moment of fear I had seen her eyes in when I found her dead body. And there, in the corner of this imaginary void, sat her crying child, with those same emerald eyes, staring at his dead mother. Lily was no longer in my arms, she was laid across the floor with no life in her body, and no love for me. I gasped, and the image was gone, leaving behind only the burning pain searing again through my chest.

I felt my body begin to fall, deeper and deeper into the darkness. But I supported myself fighting towards that door, so close to the colour of Lily's hair. As I reached with my bruising palms, the darkness eased a little, and I steadied myself, again, knowing that the minute I passed through this door, I would return to that mad flame of pain again. But I had to speak to Dumbledore. I had to know that he had done what he could.

I remember so clearly how I had begged him, made him swear. I had ran to him after my mistake. After my terrible, unforgivable mistake. After telling the dark lord so blindly the prophecy I had heard or at least, what I thought I had heard.

"The prophecy did not refer to a women," he had said, confusion moulding Dumbledore's face.

"It spoke of a boy born at the end of July".

"Yes but he thinks it's _her_ son, he intends to hunt them down, to _kill _them," I had chocked at the last part. I had refused myself to think that. If I had, maybe now would be easier. "Hide her; hide them _all_, I beg you."

"What will _you_ give _me, _Severus?"

I did not need to ponder the reply before I answered. "Anything."

It was with that word in my mind that I opened the door, a new sensation riding through me. It was more that pain, it was _anger. _I saw his eyes before I spoke. He had been expecting me.

"You said you would keep her _safe_…" I cried, walking towards him. He turned away, too ambient, too steady. Did he not care?

"Lily and James put their faith in the wrong person, Severus. Rather like you." His face returned to mine, and I felt myself slipping back into that burning fire. I clutched painfully at my side, before giving up and letting my hands fall, hopeless to ease the pain.

This time, when he spoke it was softer, the slightest hint of adoration in his voice as he said:

"The boy survived." He sounded hopeful, only slightly, but I could hear it behind the grief that was only now starting to show. He was scared for the boy, for Lilly's son.

"He doesn't need protection, the dark lord is gone," My voice rose, at the last word, trying to confirm it.

"The dark lord _will_ return," he exclaimed. "And when he does the boy will be in terrible danger." He stopped for a second, before forcing his gaze deeper into my eyes. "He has _her _eyes, Severus."

Although I had seen the boy's eyes, seen how they were the exact same shade of emerald green and how they curved graciously into the exact same almond shape, I had never realised they were her eyes. I had not realised, that when he had been crying, his tiny face was twisted into that same stare of sadness. I had not realised the fear that embedded itself in those eyes, causing the same dilation of pupils that Lily's eyes performed, were in fear for not himself, but for his mother, for his father. I had not realised he had her _love._

"If you truly loved her…" I flinched. That feeling was always known only to me, I knew Dumbledore would work it out, but spreading that part of myself felt like destroying it.

"No one, can know," I forced this out with trouble – my voice was beginning to give up altogether.

"I should never reveal the best of you Severus?"

"Your word." He would promise this. This, he would not break.

And I left, unable to bear holding myself straight against the darkness, lift the weight of the pain. I would let it crush me. Maybe not for years. But the death of Lily Evans will be the reason for my death. This one true fact gave me just a small drop of hope, because every minute before I die, I will be protecting her boy, guarding her son, just like she would. I will always see James in the dark of his hair, and that scar, so raw and fresh in my memory, will remind me strongly of the part of my heart that was now dead. But from now, until the moment I die, that bond that forced me to Lily when she was alive will live on. That connection that forced me awake every morning, that guided me to my dreams every night, will stay, and that fact, clear and small somewhere in all of this pain and confusion, grew the smallest, most faltering smile ever to pass my lips. But it was a smile. It counted.

I continued out into the grounds of Hogwarts, and than past the gates. My destination was pictured clear in my mind as I evaporated, twisting in the air, feeling its cooling effect on my flames. As I travelled, I felt my body pull slower, feeling the images pushing past me just slow enough to recognise them before they lifted from my vision. First I saw a Lilly, blooming on a peaceful pool of ice blue water, and when the image changed, I could see a small boy with emerald green eyes, ruffled, jet black hair and thick rimmed glasses playing. In the corner of the image, watching intently was Lily and James. There eyes shone with amusement at their son's absentminded piling of stones and leaves, with love for his every being, and with protection. They stood over him, always, loving and protecting them. Just behind their faces, I saw my own, staring at the boy with the same protectiveness. Maybe even with love. But there I stood, just beside Lily, protecting the thing she loved. We were together no matter how vaguely, over this strange unexplained need to keep this child's heart beating. Keep it strong.

As unbelievably fast as the image had appeared, it was gone, but the realisation of what it had shown me stayed. And, as I looked out upon the park me and Lily had met, so peaceful in the deep blue of the night, I knew that life was not, _completely_ over. Staring at the tree I used to hide within when I was a child, I accepted the loss. I allowed that part of me to burn, knowing that, it would never stop burning, not really. But as I looked out upon the changing horizon, seeing the colours turn amber as dawn began to show, I knew that, somewhere distant and different, with one eye Lilly Potter was watching her child, and with her other, she was watching me.


End file.
